REDROW remember when family homes were family sized.

Designed to be instantly recognisable, Redrow’s New Heritage Collection is a reaction to the way all new homes had become largely indistinguishable from one another.

Responding to customer feedback, the focus of the new collection is on traditional two-storey homes rather than apartments or homes spread over three floors.

The move follows Redrow founder Steve Morgan’s return to the company. Steve decided “enough was enough” and pledged to restore the company he began 35 years earlier to its core values of quality, tradition and superior styling, with an emphasis on the family homes for which it was once known.

Now firmly back at the helm of Redrow, in his role as chairman, Steve comments: “When I left Redrow in 2000, we had a product widely acknowledged to be the best in the industry, with an average selling price around 25 per cent above the UK average. When I came back our homes were selling at 20 per cent below the market average. We had too many different house styles and no real distinguishing features.

“Feedback from the majority of our customers tells us that they want a conventional two-storey home, preferably detached, with an easily accessible garage and a garden of their own. They want something that looks traditional, perhaps evocative of the family home they grew up in, but they want it to have the latest statement-making kitchens, bathrooms and good quality fixtures and fittings.”

The New Heritage Collection, launched on February 11, at Bonhams, New Bond Street, London, is a distinct step away from the tendency among housebuilders to ‘dumb down’ the product specification in a bid to reduce build costs.

The timing of the launch is impeccable – just as Britain shows signs of recovering from the recession; Nationwide, Halifax and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveys have all reported several months of steady improvement in house prices and / or demand.

Those who remember the early 1990s will recall Redrow’s original Heritage Range, a very distinctive set of homes that differentiated them from competitors and successfully steered them out of a similarly lack-lustre housing market. Redrow is aiming to repeat this feat with the New Heritage Collection.

A set of 35 different homes, it’s a premium housing product with more than a hint of nostalgia, influenced by the ‘Arts and Crafts’ era, but boasting a specification to meet the needs of modern lifestyles. 

Just as the Arts and Crafts era (c1850 – 1915) grew from the desire to bring back the skill and creativity of the individual craftsman and revive the simplicity and honesty in the way buildings and furnishings were made, Redrow has deliberately set out to reintroduce a high degree of individuality to the way its homes look and feel.

Steve explains: “We’ve taken some of the styles, shapes, colours and textures reflected in the Arts and Crafts movement and brought them right up to date with high-specification interiors styled for modern living.”

Evidence of Arts and Craft style housing can be seen in most villages, towns and cities, often on arterial routes. Redrow has researched, photographed and catalogued many of these homes and their features to ensure authenticity in its designs.

External features which typify the era are being reproduced within Redrow’s New Heritage Collection. These include dropped eaves, projecting plinths, bays and other distinctive window styles, often with leaded lights, timber or tiled canopies over doors and windows, supported by decorative gallows brackets, and the use of larch lap boarding as a feature. Front door colours reflect the ‘heritage’ feel, including ‘Brunswick’ green, deep burgundy and rich dark blue.

There are rough cast rendered and brick elevation versions of every housetype in the new collection, allowing individual developments to be designed in keeping with the local area, with options to adapt the styling when strict regional planning guides apply.

While the new collection consists mainly of two-storey detached family homes, there are smaller terraced and semi-detached properties to suit first time buyers, single purchasers, young families and couples looking to downsize.

The traditional exteriors hide a contemporary interior specification, featuring convivial open plan living spaces, fashionable kitchen designs with floor to ceiling units, central islands, top brand name appliances and even American style integrated fridge-freezers as standard in all properties over 1,600 square feet; plus bathrooms that are sleek, modern and pleasing to the eye.

Fully furnished New Heritage show homes are already open at developments in Lancashire, Merseyside, North Yorkshire, Derbyshire, plus North and South Wales. It will also be available soon in Bristol, Berkshire, Cambridgeshire, North Lincolnshire, and Scotland’s central belt.

For more details go to our Redrow contact page for web, phone and tv links.